Abstract :
The overarching aim of the present study is to
expand current approaches to assessing task absorption and
subjective experience by assessing two brief measures of
flow: (1) ‘short’ flow, reflecting an aggregate or global
measure drawn from the ‘long’ multi-item multi-factor
flow instrument and (2) ‘core’ flow reflecting the phenomenology
of the subjective flow experience itself. We
propose that short and core flow have complementary but
non-overlapping merits, purposes, and applications. Study
1 examines ‘short’ flow in work (N = 637), sport
(N = 239), and music (N = 224). Study 2 examines ‘core’
flow in general school (N = 2,229), extracurricular activity
(N = 2,229), mathematics (N = 378), and sport (N = 220)
contexts. With few exceptions, both flow measures demonstrated:
(a) acceptable model fit, reliability, and
distributions, (b) associations with motivation in hypothesized
ways, and (c) invariance in factor loadings across
diverse samples. Where common data are available, both
short and core flow are positively correlated, but with
approximately half the variance unexplained they are
clearly not the same construct, and so we offer guidance
regarding which measure/s to use under particular circumstances.
We conclude that the brief flow measures areappropriate for research examining task absorption, subjective
experience, and cognate constructs such as
motivation.
